The Penguin Concise Dictionary of Biographical Quotations

by Justin Wintle

Genres: Biography

716 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Fuller on Adrian IV aka Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope : "He held his place four years, eight months and twenty dayes : and Anno 1158, as he was drinking, was choakt with a Fly, which in the large Territory of St Peters Patrimony had no place but his Throat to get into."



WH Cummings on Thomas Arne, composer : "Calling in King Street one day [to give him a violin lesson:], Festing found Arne diligently practising with his music supported on the lid of a coffin. Horrified with the sight, he declared he could not play under such circumstances, as he would be constantly imagining there might be a corpse in the coffin beneath. 'So there is' said Arne, and gave proof by removing the lid."

*

A famous one - Nancy Astor : "Winston, if I were married to you I'd put poison in your coffee."
Churchill : "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."



Emery Kelen on Nancy Astor : "Viscount Astor owned Britain's two most influential newspapers, The Times and the Observer, but his American wife Nancy had a wider circulation than both papers put together."



Philip Guedella on Edward Gibbon, historian : "There is no Gibbon but Gibbon, and Gibbon is his prophet."




BV Bowden on Charles Babbage, mathematician : "He once tried to investigate statistically the credibility of the biblical miracles. In the course of his analysis he made the assumption that the chance of a man rising from the dead is one in ten the the power of twelve."